Tell Congress to Oppose Anti-FCC Legislation and Protect Consumers

Right now, three bad bills are cruising swiftly through Congress that seriously threaten our fundamental consumer safeguards. This dangerous trifecta is waiting in the wings to slash regulatory agency ability to protect consumers - among them the Federal Communications Commission. But there is still time to stop them if we all act fast! The house passed them on party line votes, but in the Senate, a minority of members can block these bills.

Type in your ZIP Code below to find the contact information for your Senators as well as talking points to ask them to say no to these bills:

The Midnight Rules Relief Act (H.R. 21) would transform the Congressional Review Act from a scalpel into a sledgehammer. Currently, the Congressional Review Act requires that each rule that results from a regulatory process be considered individually by Congress. The MRRA would instead allow careless bundling of unrelated rules from multiple agencies into one massive repeal measure.

The REINS Act (H.R. 5) eliminates delegation to expert agencies, leaving rulemaking to Congress. Federal agencies are an essential tenant to the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches, and the REINS Act simply keeps federal agencies from doing their jobs and pursuing their obligation to serve the public interest.

The Regulatory Accountability Act (H.R. 26) would add a litany of new procedural requirements and standards to existing rulemaking procedures, increasing the demands on agency staffs. Additionally, the RAA eliminates the Chevron Doctrine, which embodies the acknowledgement in court that Congress created administrative agencies specifically to serve as subject matter experts who are in the best position to put the policies delegated to them by Congress into practice. It also requires a cost analysis to decide on rulemakings, reducing the importance of the core public interest standard that has protected consumers since 1934.

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Internet access is the essential gateway by which Americans then access nearly all other basic parts of daily life: emergency communications, jobs and employment, education, health care, civic engagement, and basic commerce, entrepreneurship, and economic development. The Federal Communications Commission in particular plays an essential function in consumer safeguards in the digital arena. We must not allow lawmakers to get away with a sneaky watering down of standards for consumer protection in communications policy to slip through Congress under the radar.

This is most critical when it comes to the complexities and fast-paced technological changes in communications policy. Over the past several decades, the FCC has been responsible for such groundbreaking policymaking as expanding Lifeline to help low income Americans get broadband, ensuring reliability standards in emergencies through the tech transition, and establishing open internet rules and basic broadband privacy. Without a strong FCC, no one will be tasked with protecting the life and safety of Americans through basic communications. Instead, these laws would rescind that protection in favor of a few big monied interests. Tell your Senator to preserve basic consumer protections and stop H.R. 21, H.R. 5, and H.R. 26.